“Remember, no matter how much I despise Georgia Pruitt, she's still the wife I married and brought home.”

“You can look. You don't touch.”

Richard nodded, obedient and quiet. “Okay.”

The living room door slammed shut.

A few seconds of hesitation.

Then the bedroom door handle turned, and the door swung open.

I squeezed my eyes shut, kept my breathing slow and even, pretending I was still deep in the sleep the sedative was supposed to have given me.

His footsteps were soft, as if he didn't want to wake me.

Richard walked to the edge of the bed and stood there for a while.

I could feel his gaze on me, heavy with something complicated.

“Georgie?” he called, barely above a whisper.

I didn't move.

He was silent for a few more seconds, then reached out and gently lifted the sleep mask from my eyes.

The room was dim. Only the small amber nightlight was on.

I didn't dare open my eyes. All I could do was track his movements by feel.

Richard sat on the edge of the bed and watched me for a long time without speaking.

Then he raised his hand and touched my face.

A shudder ran through my whole body.

The next second, his hand drifted slowly downward, fingers trailing along my neck……

Every muscle in me went taut.

Curt had warned him. This was only a performance. He wasn't allowed to touch me. Had he gone rogue?

Did Richard actually feel something for me……

While my mind was still racing,

I heard a faint sigh from just above me.

“Georgie, if only I were the one who'd married you.”

“If only……”

“I were Curt Dudley.”

Richard leaned down and pressed a light kiss to my forehead.

Then he stood and went into the bathroom.

The water turned on.

Unlike Curt, Richard showered fast. He was out in under ten minutes.

He climbed into bed so carefully, as if afraid of disturbing something fragile.

He lifted one corner of the blanket and slid in beside me.

Same as every other night, his hand slid to my waist and loosely held on.

Restrained. Distant.

Deliberately polite.

Like completing a task.

I laughed to myself, cold and silent.

Three years. Every single night, the same thing.

If I was “asleep,” he'd just hold me like this, proper and still, until morning.

If I wasn't “asleep,” he'd follow Curt's instructions: “kiss her a couple of times, make it look intimate.”

But he never crossed the line.

Because Curt wouldn't allow it.

And because Richard “couldn't.”

I didn't know how long I lay there, until the breathing beside me turned deep and steady.

Only then did I open my eyes in the dark.

In the spill of moonlight, I could see the face of the man beside me. He really did look like Curt.

A single thought.

It rose slowly inside me.

The next morning, by the time I got up, Richard was already gone.

Breakfast sat ready on the table, along with a handwritten note.

“Had to go in for overtime. Don't forget to eat. Love you.”

My gaze dropped to the signature at the bottom.

I smiled, slow and knowing.

The handwriting was trying its hardest to imitate Curt's.

But everyone has their own habits when they write.

Pay even a little attention, and the tells are obvious.

I finished breakfast and stared out the window at the empty garage for a long time, thinking.

If I'd heard correctly last night,

one very familiar name had come up.

Lila Mercer.

Curt's ex-girlfriend from eight years ago. The old flame everyone thought had burned out for good.

She'd come back to the country.

And she and Curt had been rekindling it in secret—for three full years.

I picked up the phone and called Gwen.

“Gwen, is there a pregnant patient named Lila Mercer at your hospital?”

Gwyneth Sullivan sounded surprised for a moment. “Let me check for you right now.”

She seemed to be in the middle of eating. I heard her set something down, then the rapid clatter of a keyboard.

A minute later, she said, “There is one.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Can you send me the surveillance footage?”

“Done.”

One look.

That was all it took.

Curt Dudley had been cheating on me for a long time.

In the footage, he was guiding Lila by the arm, careful and intimate. Her belly was visibly rounded, five or six months along at least.

He leaned down and murmured something near her ear.

Lila's eyes curved into crescents as she laughed, reaching up to give his chest a playful little punch.

There was no audio, but the picture said everything.

Gwyneth's call came right after.

“Georgia, did you see the video?”

“Yeah.”

“That Lila……”

Gwyneth's voice went careful. “She's pregnant. Six months along—that's when the chart was created.”

“And the father listed on the record is Curt Dudley.”

My fingers went white around the phone.

“Confirmed?”

“Confirmed. I checked the system. Her OB is a colleague of mine, and I asked. Curt has been at every single prenatal checkup. Hasn't missed one.”

Gwyneth hesitated, then couldn't hold it back. “Georgia, has Curt been cheating on you this whole time?!”

I nodded, even though she couldn't see me. “Yes. And he's been lying to me for three full years.”

The other end of the line went quiet for a few seconds.

“What?”

“Three years of marriage, and he has never once touched me.”

My smile tasted like ash. “Every night, the man who walked into my room was a stand-in he hired.”

“He was at the hospital holding Lila's hand through her checkups. His stand-in was in my bed, playing house.”

Gwyneth sucked in a sharp breath.

“Holy shit.” She swore, then, “Is Curt Dudley even human?”

“He's not.”

My voice was calm. “He's an animal.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I took a slow breath. “Delete the footage.”

Gwyneth was stunned.

“Georgia Pruitt, have you lost your mind?”

“That evidence took real effort to dig up! Even if you file for divorce down the line, you could use it in court!”

“You'd just delete it and let those two walk away clean?”

I smiled faintly. “Divorce? Why would I want a divorce?”

Men were the one thing this world never ran out of.

Curt Dudley played me for three years.

So why couldn't I return the favor?

Gwyneth wanted to press further.

But I told her to keep it quiet and hung up.

As expected, the person who came to see me during the day was the real Curt Dudley.

Richard only appeared at night.

But right now, I wanted Curt to……disappear.

So I paid off a few people and had a handful of dried beans scattered across the path Lila walked every day.

That afternoon, sure enough, Curt's face drained of color the moment he took a call. He grabbed his jacket and bolted for the door.

I poked my head out of the study.

“Honey, where are you going?”

Curt didn't even turn around. “Important client I need to meet. Have the housekeeper make you dinner. I'll be back to keep you company later!”

Before, even when he was lying to my face,

he would at least commit to the devoted-husband act. He'd never slipped this obviously.

But I let a slow smile settle on my mouth and turned toward the attic.

That was where Curt's loyal stand-in lived—Richard Gilbert. I pulled up the surveillance feed, and sure enough, Curt had barely walked out the door before he was on the phone with Richard.

“Some idiot scattered beans on the road and Lila took a fall. She's in the hospital. I need to be with her the next few days.”

“Richard, these next few days—day and night—you stand in for me and stay with Georgia.”

“And remember, she cannot find out.”

……

Sure enough, an hour later.

Richard walked in pretending he'd just come back from outside.

I lifted my gaze slowly, looked at the man in front of me wearing the exact same face as Curt Dudley.

And smiled.

“Honey, you're back so soon? Done with the client already?”

Richard froze for a beat, then recovered fast.

“Handed the client off to someone else.”

“Georgie, you can't sleep without me next to you. No matter how busy I am, I'm always coming home to you.”

That night, when Richard tried to give me the glass of orange juice, I took it from his hand.

And poured it straight into the flowerpot.

Richard's eyes widened. “Geor……Georgie, you……”

“Not drinking that tonight. You're taking me to a dinner party.”

I stepped forward and looped my arm through his. “Come on. Help me pick out a dress upstairs.”

A few minutes later, Richard held out an orange gown.

“This color suits you. You'd look like a princess in it.”

“Oh?”

I raised an eyebrow, smiling. “If my husband picked it, it must be beautiful.”

Then I started unbuttoning my blouse.

Richard shot to his feet, color flooding all the way to the back of his ears. “What are you doing?”

I blinked at him, innocent as anything. “Changing, obviously.”

“Honey, it's not like you haven't seen me undressed before. Why so shy?”

He was clenching every muscle trying to look calm, but the vein standing rigid on his neck told the whole story.

One more second and he was going to detonate where he stood.

That was when I finally let up and stopped teasing him.

After the dinner party, I'd just gotten out of the shower when my phone lit up with a photo and a text from an unknown number.

“Georgia, see this? Your husband's been with me the whole time. Three years of marriage and you can't even hold on to your man. Why not just admit you're pathetic?”

“Look at me. Six months pregnant. Curt says he's taking me abroad to have the baby, and after that, every last piece of the Dudley empire goes to my son.”

“So what if you're sitting pretty in the wife's seat? When it's all said and done, you'll still have nothing.”

Anonymous number or not.

I already knew exactly who sent it.

Three years of marriage to Curt, and Lila had never been content to stay a nameless mistress.

This kind of thing was hardly the first time.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the study where I'd planted a listening device,

Richard's voice came through, begging.

“Mr. Dudley, please, you have to come back. If you don't come back soon, things are going to……”

He didn't even finish before Curt cut him off, impatient.

“God, Richard, are you still this much of a coward?”

“It's not your first day. Three years and you're still not used to it?”

“Actually, I was just about to call you about this.”

“Lila's going abroad to have the baby. Between the delivery and recovery, she probably won't be back for a year……”

“So this next year, I'll need you to keep being me.”

“Same thing I always tell you—Georgia is my wife. You can look, but you don't touch. Hear me?”

Richard was still pressing, desperate. “Mr. Dudley……”

“Enough. If that's all, I'm hanging up.”

The line went dead, nothing but the flat pulse of a dial tone.

“Who was that?”

Richard flinched when I appeared, spinning around.

“It was nothing. I was just on a call with a client……”

What a pathetic excuse.

“Drop the act.”

I walked toward him with a smile. “He's taking that woman overseas to have the baby, isn't he?”

Richard's head snapped up, shock and disbelief raw across his face. “Georgia, what are you talking about?”

I smiled and got straight to the point.

“You wear his exact face. So why not replace him entirely?”

“Hmm? Richard Gilbert?”